Hi follks. My forum name is Catweasel and I'm a new "kid" on the block. Based in North Hampshire,this is my first venture into American railroads. The track plan was suggested by Shortliner,who you may know. It's busy, but I like that. I've already found that the sector plate needs to be longer. Loco's are DCC and switches are controlled with a MegaPoints Controller. I'm lucky in having a dedicated railway room,or man cave, and the overall size of the layout will be approx. 14 feet x 18". Thanks for now.

Have you considered building your layout in a modular form built to the Freemo Standard so that you can easily move and possibly display your modules at area modular meets?

I am speaking from experience as I had previously constructed both 18" and 24" wide x 12 feet shelf type layouts that were fixed and not easily moved, before discovering the benefits of building modules and sharing with others.

Most of us include our names, cos we know each other. But Peter B makes a good point, with very little compromise on your plan (assuming you have not started) would make a good module. OK, it apparently has a back scene, which freemo does not encourage, but I can not see a meet organiser getting up tight about that. One does however need to be able to throw turnouts and stuff from both sides.

Perhaps the first thing to do is find out if modules "rock your boat". Off the top of my head the Bearwood group may be worth a visit?

My name is Henry.The layout is fitted into a 10x 6 foot shed and is on 4ft x 18" Tim Horn 'boards. No backscenes are fitted. I'm going to fit a small piece to the left side as the sector plate is too short. Effectively, the layout would now come round in a "U" shape, with a basic fiddle yard on the left hand side. It could be made modular I suppose with relative ease. I'll have to check track spacings. Just had a look at Bearwood and it's not practical for a visit. 58 mile each way.

Well, here we go again. I've scrapped the original plan as I felt it looked too busy. Less is more. The new plan, to me, seems to be more typical of a sleepy end of line. I intend to lay the track in a gentle curve and follow through onto the other side of the shed. This side would be both a fiddle yard and a second terminus. I hope. Pictures will follow in the fullness of time. I would like some ideas of ballasting though please. The line is supposed to represent a rather run down operation and money is tight. No fancy hi faluting ballast here. I was thinking of using something like aquarium sand, suitably coloured, to represent a line put down on the dirt. Would that work? Thanks.

Could you put a couple of tracks for storage behind the second side of the layout? That gives you visible layout on both sides of the shed and a fiddle yard. I had 12" high buildings in front of a four track sector plate on an exhibition layout. This meant that the whole layout had visible working track and 4 x 4' trains in storage.

I use sieved sharp sand for scenery. Three sieves (two tea strainers and a flour sieve) give me sand, HO ballast, small stones and large stones. I use the sand in yards, static grass makes it look more run down. 25Kg is less than £3, gives you a load of sand, a lot of ballast, quite a bit of stones. It does take a bit of effort to dry it out and sieved it, but from one bag I've done one large and several small modules and have a load of it left. I store it in rinsed out squash bottles.